I found an old piece of weathered wood/log/stump on a mountain-side. I am really not sure what the wood is but think it’s either maple or oak. Its “foot print” is about 4’ long x 18’’ high x 2’ wide. I have pressure washed it, power-sanded it, used an air hose on it, and last, but not least, I used a brass brush on it for over 2 hours. I have gotten it pretty much where I want it, but will still do some more on it before applying a finish. This is a pretty big piece that I plan on using as a table base. My question is….how should I go about finishing this? In a perfect world, I want it to really shine/glow. It has some beautiful swirls and knots in it that I know will really pop out if I do it ight. Thanks. Any and all help would be appreciated

-- Use it up, Wear it out --------------- Make it do, Or do without!

4 replies so far

Spray it with a marine varnish? Since it looks like mostly a heartwood/root part of the tree, I don’t know how much it will shrink or expand, maybe someone with driftwood experience can comment. Years ago there was a product called Carver Tripps Liquid Glass. THAT was smooth and glossy – a really hard finish.

There are many things that you can do with this if you have the time I would use a couple of layers of boiled linseed oil. The linseed oil brings will bring out the swirls and knots a little more. The only downside to using boiled linseed oil is that it takes a long time for it to dry between coats, about three days. To go on top of that know that Menards sells a product that is called Envirotex this will give you a hard finish that if you are going to use this for a table leg will give you resistance to dings and dents from chairs and other object. Envirotex is a little expensive and hard to work with so if you have not worked with something like that before I would say away from it or try it out on something first. Other finishes that you could use would be a catalyzed lacquer that will get relatively hard and this is usually nice to be able to spray on. If you just want to wipe on a finish I would use a couple of layer of shellac. Before you do any of this though I would make sure that you have all of you cross grain scratches gone.

Hope this helps and if you have some closer pictures of this piece of wood I might be able to tell you what it is.